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Friday, 19 June 2009

Playing Monster and Hunting Mosquitoes

By Frank M. Calabria

One of the greatest joys of being a parent and a grandparent was, and is, playing with our children and grandchildren. Many years ago when our children were small, I would be greeted by our two boys, four- and six-years-old, upon coming home from work. As I opened the door, they would rush to me, shouting, “Monster. Monster, let’s play Monster.”

Monster was a game I invented to play with them, which became their favorite game of all time. Here is the gist of the game: the monster, to satisfy his carnal appetite, would go searching for food. Like the wolf in Grimm’s story of The Wolf And the Seven Kids, the Monster particularly relished finding young children to take back to his lair to consume for dinner after his afternoon nap.

The game would begin with our two sons scattering to find hiding places where the Monster could not find them. I, as the Monster, would go looking for them, grunting and groaning and shouting, “I’m hungry. I want food!”

I would look in closets or behind a door or under a bed. When the monster did locate one or both of his victims, he would pick them up and proceed to take them back to his lair. I would plop myself down on the king-sized bed in our bedroom and entwine my legs around my two captives and promptly fake going to sleep.

I began to snore loudly and I could feel my captives trying to break the tight hold I had on them. Soon, I began to loosen my grip to the point where they could free themselves. They paid attention not to awaken me and quietly sneaked away. Off they went looking for another hiding place. I would awaken and go looking for them once again.

Their mother attempted to substitute for me as the Monster when I was away, but the boys were dissatisfied with her performance. “Boring,” one of our sons remarked after her initial attempt to be the Monster. They knew who the real Monster was.

Years later, when one of our sons (who loved to play the Monster game) married and had a family of his own, he invited us to visit the them over the Easter holidays. When we arrived, Kyle, my grandson, greeted me by eagerly taking me by the hand and said that we had to go mosquito hunting.

Not feeling particularly spry after four hours of driving, hunting mosquitoes was not a challenge uppermost in my mind. But I went along anyway on the afternoon mosquito patrol that my grandson had planned.

Kyle led me warily toward the canopy of trees and ominous-looking bushes behind the house. It was a sunny afternoon and before we climbed into his backyard tree house, I fashioned a five foot bow and several arrows out of the surrounding bushes – effective weapons should we encounter any blood-sucking hordes that had the temerity to cross our path.

With an assortment of sticks and branches, we began to set ingenious traps to capture our prey. I lost all sense of time and it was only when I saw my spouse heading in our direction that I looked at my watch. Two hours had elapsed!

My wife called me aside and handed me a book on the stars and constellations, substantial fare for man and boy to sink their teeth into instead of playing a silly game. Somewhat reluctant to break the enchantment of our mosquito hunt, but feeling a tinge of guilt that I might be neglecting the proper education of our grandson, I proceeded to give our preschooler a lesson in astronomy.

I called up to Kyle in the treehouse and asked if he knew anything about the Big Dipper. Responding in an off-handed way, he patiently proceeded to reel off every extant fact known about the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper as well.

Recovering from my amazement at his erudition, I closed the book and decided to go back to serious business, PLAY. Granddad and grandson went back to mapping out new strategies to catch any mosquitoes foolhardy enough to come within a five-mile radius of us.

With the afternoon waning, we walked back to the house and I suddenly realized how youthful and energized I felt. Kyle looked up at me and said, “I love you, Granddad.”

[EDITORIAL NOTE: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Instructions for submitting are here.]

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